The sharp flash from the camera caught Ernie Harbon by surprise and he glanced down at the speedometer on his dashboard. He was only travelling at 38mph and it was a quiet country road. He scanned the wide, empty carriageway ahead of him but could not see a road sign telling drivers the speed limit.

When the £60 penalty fine for exceeding the 30mph limit dropped through his letter box some days later the 62-year-old painter and decorator decided to challenge the decision. He would not pay up and nor would he accept the three penalty points on his licence. It was, he argued, unfair to penalise him when the speed limit on the road in his home county of Derbyshire was not clear.

Little did he realise that by last weekend he would be serving time in Leicester jail for his minor transgression, imprisoned for the non-payment of his fine. The two-week sentence handed out by Derby magistrates horrified Harbon’s friends and family. “This is not justice. He does not deserve to be punished like a hardened crook,” said his brother David.

Harbon’s story, although extreme, is not as unusual as one might think. Last Sunday Martin Narey, the head of the prison service, admitted that jails are now overwhelmed by motorists locked up for minor violations. “Custody rates for some petty offences, including motoring, have quadrupled in the last 10 years,” said Narey. “They don’t need to be in jail in such numbers.”

Underlining his point, it emerged last week that in 2002 15,059 people were jailed for motoring offences, compared with 10,184 for burglary.

But while most motoring offences will never result in a jail sentence, British motorists are under increasing pressure from the burgeoning number of fixed penalty fines being issued.

More worrying still is the fact that later this year council employees will be given a range of punitive powers until now reserved for police officers. Under the Traffic Management Bill they will be able to fine drivers for a wide range of minor offences, from making illegal right turns to parking in the wrong direction on a one-way street.

Moreover, as with council-run parking wardens, their duties are likely to be contracted out to private companies. Local authorities will also be allowed to keep a percentage of any fines issued, increasing fears that the powers will be used to raise revenue.

Last week Sunday Times Driving carried out an international survey that highlights how the British motorist is punished more harshly (not to mention taxed more) than those in Germany, Holland, Spain and France. Fines can vary from state to state in the US, so we picked Ohio as a typical example and again found figures that made Britain’s fines regime seem brutal.

The most widely invoked forfeits in Britain are for speeding. The government has yet to release details of how many speeding tickets were issued in either 2002 or 2003 but experts believe that 5,500 motorists were fined every day in 2002, and even more last year.

Travelling at 36mph in a 30mph zone here would result in a fixed penalty fine of £60 with three penalty points on the offender’s licence. Of the other countries surveyed, only in France would the licence be endorsed for travelling 6mph over the limit. In Germany, the fine is just £10, and in Spain travelling 6mph over the limit carries no fine at all.

This month in Britain, a new automated fixed penalty fines system went live to ensure that everyone whose road tax disc expires is fined £80. In France, Spain, Germany and the US there is no comparable fine. In Holland the charge for the equivalent offence is just £66.

A parking fine in London will set a motorist back £80, or £60 elsewhere, compared with £31 in Holland, £8 in France, a maximum of £24 in Germany and £20 in Ohio.